A UN Development Program workshop on gender and disaster-risk reduction related to climate change, Cambodia, August 2019. In an essay, an expert on the UN development system says it “cries out for reform” but is stuck in inertia. MANUTH BUTH/UNDP CAMBODIA
Achim Steiner, center, is a longtime specialist who now runs the UN Development Program, based in New York. The current restructuring of the UN may be sidelining Steiner, jeopardizing development work.
As the first effects of Secretary-General António Guterres’s ambitious organizational reform plans become apparent, former and current officials of the United Nations Development Program see the future of the internationally influential agency as uncertain if not in peril.
